Published on 12, July, 2020
Hi, I am in a long term realtionship married for over 10 years. Communication (mine) has always been as issue. I don't communicate much with my wife and have been through different therapies, first for a diagnosis of social anxiety, and a second for strategies in relationship communication. Both of these I felt helped but my wife doesn't think so.
She believes I have high functioning autism, and we have looked at some online quick assessments which would suggest this too, I am waiting for an assessment referral through my GP. However, things in our relationship have become increasingly strained during Covid, as we dont get time away from each other and so I struggle to find things to talk about.
I have been working on telling her more but often when I say something she feels I am saying something else and I am not explaining things well, Is this something that people with autism can relate to, and be a suggestion that I am on the spectrum.
I am struggling to find any help and advice, there is a lot for what other people can do to help someone with autism but I am struggling to find what I can do to help myself.
Can anyone relate or give advice?
What does she want to talk about?
If something /anything, then the suggestions about doing stuff together here are good. It should generate conversation without you having to think too much about it.
If it's about your emotional landscapes, perhaps you could both read up on autistic communication styles. Perhaps you'll both learn more about what the other means when you express things in particular ways or why you would or wouldn't naturally feel inclined to engage in verbal conversation at all. Tony Attwood talks about these partnership issues.
You don't have wait for a diagnosis to try out ways to translate each other's communication modes, learn each other's language, so to speak. But, it can't be one way, I'd suggest. She'd have to try learning to speak 'apergerese' as Attwood puts it, too.
Here's one wacky idea, which you could take or leave...With the dawning realisation that my understanding of emotions may not map to those of the folks around me, I've been looking at the emotion wheel (google that in images and they pop up). I don't see how some of them fit or how some of them are emotions at all. When lockdown is over, I think I need a chat with my girl friends to see how they see each of them in relation to how I see them. I'm not going to change how I communicate because I can't be what I'm not, but it might help me understand how others are communicating with me and help them understand what I mean. Maybe you could try an exercise like that.